What Are Stars Without a Sky?
by bleubirdsong
Summary: For a star to truly shine, there has to be the night sky around it. A contrast; a foil. That is what Harry has always been.


_Songfic inspired by Boats and Birds by Gregory and the Hawk._

* * *

_If you'll be my star_

Harry looked at Tom, whose face was aglow with energy and passion as he talked about the changes that he wished to bring into the world. Tom was always like a light in the darkness that infested the monotony of the Wizarding World. Everyone was so stagnant, fixed in their beliefs.

Old, old beliefs, outdated not decades but _centuries_, keeping the Wizarding World stuck in a bubble of time while the outside world rushed on past them to innovation, equality, and the future.

Tom had a vision; a grand plan to fix all that was wrong with the world, that which labeled him and Harry second rate citizens and endeavored to keep people ignorant of the dangers they were in. 

_I'll be your sky _

Of course Harry would support him. How could he not? From the very first moments they were in this together. When the Sorting Hat fell on Harry's head and declared him a Slytherin for all the world, shuttled into a stereotype to which Harry did not belong, there was silence. The Slytherin table did not look at him; no they _glared_ because how could they possibly accept a halfblood into their fold? They were not forgiving.

When the boy right after Harry also was sorted into Slytherin and the table went silent again, Harry had waved and smiled and a partnership was formed.

The two of them against the world.

_You can hide underneath me and come out at night _

At first, Harry was the buffer. Being a halfblood - not a despicable mudblood - he was afforded some leniency, however slight. Tom did not like to cower but desperate times called for desperate measures and he ducked his head behind the blanket of Harry's friendship.

Harry backed him up in a fight.

Harry shared his notes and homework when Tom's were destroyed or stolen and there was no time for him to replicate his work.

Harry was the shield, and he did not mind.

Tom did not like it, but it didn't have to last long. Eventually, Tom's brilliance began to shine as the harsh rays of sunlight faded into dusk and then Harry could step back and watch him dance.

_When I turn jet black _

Harry had never been as full of vigor and animated life as Tom. While Tom could wax poetic about everything from the potential business uses of Nifflers to the effects of refraction on Stunning spells, Harry preferred to be quiet and listen.

It was better that way.

Tom always performed beyond all expectations and shattered the bars for so many things that eventually his assignments changed to better accommodate his mind and the conclusions it could draw. Harry always performed right to the expected mark, smiling all the way.

He did not mind being a foil; fading into the background.

_And you show off your light _

It only made Tom shine brighter. Nobody ever notices the darkness between the stars.

Slughorn snapped up Tom the second day of class. He figured out Tom's potential right from the very start; he was a perceptive leech. Harry did not receive the same invitation, although he was the second in his year right behind Tom because he was quiet, invisible, perhaps simply not there. It was as if his skin was the shimmer of his Invisibility Cloak and his eyes were the patterns woven into the material that only occasionally caught the light, and only from the inside.

Tom was allowed inside, no one else even knew it was there.

_I live to let you shine _

Tom's ideas were greater than one single human body, so weak, so breakable. Covered in skin that could be pierced by a needle to let the life trickle out, out, out. When Hogwarts ended and Tom (and Harry) graduated with honors, Harry followed Tom because at this point, where could he go?

When Tom stood on conjured stages with a _Sonorus_ pointed at his throat and tried to fill the grey stagnancy with a breath of fresh air, Harry stayed in the shadows with a wand always ready with preformed spells that made sweat dew on his forehead, ready to attack should anyone intervene.

_I live to let you shine _

Some people did try to sabotage Tom. He was too charismatic for some, too brilliant, too new with ideas that would not only rock the foundations of the world but bring them crashing down into dust to be swept away into the corners. Tom was a beautiful ruin on the precipice of change and that made people scared.

Harry counted sixteen attempted Killing Curses, only two that Tom even saw, so swiftly they were dealt with. Countless pranks lying in wait to make a fool of Tom. Poisons, curses, duels that were never allowed the chance to be arranged...Harry would stop it all.

_But you can skyrocket away from me _

"I don't understand why you hover so much!" Tom said as he shuffled papers for a new bill that would uproot the basic structure of the Wizengamot. "It's not as if I'm incompetent, you know. I graduated with top honors. Do you truly think me so weak?"

"I know you're not incompetent," Harry said, mind grasping at straws because Tom just had to understand. "But you're focused on your work and it would only take one moment of inattention-"

"Do you truly think so low of me? Like everyone else does? The ones that think that I got this far on money, on luck, on who I know instead of my own merits? I know what I can handle and I do not need your babying." Tom said, eyes aflame like a supernova waiting to happen.

"That's not what I-"

"Get out," Tom said, voice flat, monotone, a light bright enough to burn.

The finality in those eyes cut Harry to the bones.

_And never come back if you find another galaxy _

Harry had only been trying to help. To insure that everything would go well; that Tom had nothing to worry himself about. He hadn't been trying to lower Tom's skills, no! He had always been aware that Tom was more than Harry himself could ever be, but even gods need to sleep sometimes. And when they sleep, they need another's eyes.

_Far from here with more room to fly _

"I wasn't trying to mean anything like that," Harry said as he backed away toward the door, slipping his Invisibility Cloak onto his shoulders. "You know I didn't."

Tom was silent, too silent. Harry turned to go. Let Tom have the freedom he wishes, Harry thought, heart growing cold. Perhaps he will reconsider or hire someone new.

_Just leave me your stardust to remember you by _

Harry sat at his kitchen table as the light made the dust motes glitter like the shards of glass that Harry could still feel along his skin. The Daily Prophet had a large photograph of Tom on the cover, smiling that politician's smile and shaking hands with his opponents...looking carefree.

The shards of glass dug in a little deeper.

_If you'll be my boat _

The changes were slow, but they were piling up. It had only been two years since they left school but already the air was different when Harry went outside; Diagon Alley was cleaner, the Floo was not quite so dirty, and smiles graced the lips of people who had had no reason to smile before.

Sometimes, Harry saw Tom from a distance and wondered if Tom still thought of him; if Tom perhaps spent long evenings trying to write him a letter but failing every time. If Tom kept the ones that Harry sent every week without fail, detailing nothing but petty details because what could you really say after an incident like that?

_I'll be your sea _

Harry needed Tom. It had only been a few months but there was always something missing. Harry still flew on his broom every evening as the sun settled down and the sky turned dark and the stars glittered bright. He still made his rounds teaching Muggleborns Wizarding customs as per the new decree. He still tended to the lilies in his garden. It wasn't like life had stopped since Tom asked him to go, but the colors seemed just the slightest bit desaturated.

If Harry could not help Tom by protecting him, he would have to resort to new measures.

_A depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity _

Harry put on a mask and entered the political scene.

He had never really played the politics games with the other Slytherins while a student but he had played witness to the rise and fall of political fancy. Perhaps it would serve him now. He slowly danced into the game, a new ally of unknown origins under a new face.

Sometime he would feel eyes on his mask, as if peeling back the layers of glamour and transfigurations and skin to look at what was truly beneath.

At those moments, he would avoid Tom's eyes because he was afraid of what he would see.

_Ebbing and flowing _ It was a few month's worth of dancing later that Tom made a move that surprised Harry. It was something that had come up on occasion but Harry had always assumed that Tom was thinking up such things to vent his frustration at the status quo, not that he was planning to implement it.

Take the Muggleborns early and cut off all contact with the Muggles.

Harry could see the sense in that. Yes, take the Muggleborns and raise them in the Wizarding World until they are just as home with Wizarding customs than your average halfblood, or perhaps even more so. Give them unto Wizarding families who would teach them; care for them. Eliminate the prejudices by removing one of the bases that they rest on.

Harry could not stop thinking about the parents of those Muggleborns, losing their children and then having their memories erased just like that, without a chance to watch their children grow up.

Harry put himself behind this new rule but with a few additions; give them a choice or put them under vow.

With his addition, it passed with ease and Tom watched him closely as ever.

_And pushed by a breeze _

I know that you know it's me, Harry thought as he met Tom's eyes, braced for the incoming Legilimency probe that tickled his walls. Will you take me back?

Tom did not answer but before he looked away, Harry thought that he could feel an aching sense of loss.

_I live to make you free _

I'm not mad, Harry wrote on a small, blank card. He blew a spell to dry the ink and attached it to a common barn owl, whispering Tom's name to its feathered ear.

_I live to make you free _

I've always been behind you, Harry wrote another day.

_But you can set sail to the west if you want to _ You don't have to feel guilty.

_And pass the horizon, 'til I can't even see you _ I will understand. _Far from here _ Just tell me.

_Where the beaches are wide _ Come back.

_Just leave me your wake to remember you by _ I forgive you.

* * *

_If you'll be my star _

Tom tried to shove away his feelings because in the end they were unproductive and dwelling on them would only make things worse. Harry had left and did not come back. Tom had, in one argument, destroyed something wonderful that had existed for years and years that only grew stronger as the time went on. Harry had been the one fixed constant, a point of light upon which the whole sky turned round.

From the very beginning they were inseparable and now they were broken apart, Harry still sending little letters out of courtesy and regard for their past friendship.

_I'll be your sky _ It had been a bad day. One of Tom's people was being blackmailed with family matters and the wording of the new bill he had been writing was too ambiguous and would be easily evaded and nothing that he could wrangle from the English language was sufficient. Harry had been hovering again, looking like nothing more than a mother bear protecting her cub.

It had seemed demeaning to Tom.

Everything that he had promised himself; how he would never drive Harry away like he scared all of the other Slytherins, was broken right there and then.

_You can hide underneath me and come out at night _ Some nights, Tom had thought that this was a long time coming. Where had their friendship gone? Tom had always thought that they would both enter the political game or perhaps only Tom would and Harry would stay a steadfast friend through it all. But eventually it had all turned wrong and sour as Harry threw himself into protecting Tom with single-minded devotion that had buried the friend that Tom had loved for so long. Buried him in darkness. Hid himself behind Tom.

_When I turn jet black _ Harry had always faded into the background, Tom knew this. But that had only applied to everyone but Tom, who had always seen the little glimmer that was Harry, who had been covering his own shine for the sake of Tom's. He did not think it that serious because Harry still beat everyone else in their year. Perhaps Harry just did not enjoy the attention.

But when had it come to this? Now, Harry was forcing himself to fade from even Tom's view.

_And you show off your light _ When Tom had first noticed the new person on the political scene, he did not notice anything out of the ordinary. But when his agents began to dig deep and after a certain level there was nothing at all to find, Tom had turned his eye on this new person who supported everything that Tom did in a vocal, evocative manner that turned the softhearted to Tom's schemes where they had avoided them before.

_I live to let you shine _ It took but a week to realize that somehow, this must be Harry. Who always placed himself, ridiculously, in the role of Tom's protector, sacrificing himself for silly reasons that did not truly exist.

_I live to let you shine _

When Tom had sent out a faint Legilimency probe to the wide open eyes across the courtroom, who were staring at him as if in invitation, he had heard the message that danced outside of familiar walls and froze, feeling all of his loss, nostalgia, and sadness seep into the space as Harry accused him of being the one to cause the distance at the same time as asking for Tom's forgiveness. As if Harry had done something terribly wrong and stayed away because Tom had wished it so.

Tom was at loss how to respond.

_But you can skyrocket away from me _

The letters, Tom did not know how to respond to. They gave him a little flare of hope inside his chest that made something in Tom come alive again. But would it be a good idea to take Harry back? Harry would simply revert back into old habits and then Tom would not be able to forgive himself. What if staying away would help Harry learn to shine?

_And never come back if you find another galaxy _

The last letter that came had the words "I love you," and something inside Tom broke and he cried for the first time in years.

_Far from here with more room to fly _

Only if you promise to let me do what I need to do, Tom wrote, without doing anything but being my friend.

_Just leave me your stardust to remember you by _

That will be enough for me.

_Stardust to remember you by_

I'll try, Harry's response said as it flew through the window in the talons of a barn owl with the moon for a face.


End file.
